1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to wire mesh grips for strain relief protection of flexible cables, and more particularly, is concerned with a fixture and method for compressing a wire mesh grip to facilitate installation of a flexible cable therethrough.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, wire mesh grips that provide solutions for cable management problems, such as strain relief protection and support of flexible cables (the term "cable" is used in a generic sense to also include conduits, cords, hoses and the like), have been manufactured and marketed by Hubbell Incorporated of Orange, Conn., the assignee of the subject application. Like a woven bamboo finger-trap toy, the wire mesh grip is deceptively simple in design. Nonetheless, the wire mesh grip is extremely effective for supporting and pulling a flexible cable in manner which avoids, or at least minimizes, damage thereto, such as would occur with pulling a cable out from a connection, and thereby extends the life of the cable. Wire mesh grips are widely used in diverse industrial and commercial applications wherever cables go in, out, through and around a wide variety of equipment.
Because of its tubular shape and endless weave construction, the wire mesh grip concurrently increases in axial length and decreases in diameter as it is moved in the axial direction from a compressed condition to an expanded condition. With the wire mesh grip normally disposed in its expanded condition surrounding and gripping a cable, the application of a pulling force on the cable that will tend to pull the cable away from its connection to the equipment will also pull on and tend to further expand the wire mesh grip in the axial direction away from a fixed anchor location. Such expansion of the wire mesh grip will further decrease its diameter and thereby increase its grip on the cable so as to resist the pull on the cable and prevent damage to its connection with the equipment.
To install the wire mesh grip about a cable, the diameter of the wire mesh grip first must be increased to a size greater than that of the cable so as to allow insertion of the cable through the grip. The diameter of the wire mesh grip is increased by decreasing its axial length which, in turn, is brought about by compressing the opposite ends of the wire mesh grip in the axial direction toward one another. Up to the present time, such compressing of the wire mesh grip has been carried out manually by a worker. To compress the grip, the worker has had to push the opposite ends of the grip toward one another against the grip's natural tendency to spring back and expand or elongate to a given greater length and to a diameter smaller than the cable to which it is designed to be applied. It is difficult and tiresome for a worker to so compress the grip and then to hold it in the compressed non-gripping condition as a cable is inserted through it. In some instances, it takes two workers to hold the grip in the compressed non-gripping condition and install the cable through the compressed grip.
Consequently, a need still exists for improvements in the ability of workers to handle wire mesh grips so as to thereby improve the productivity of workers in installing wire mesh grips over cables.